Defense Authorization Conference on Hold as Hate-Crimes Impasse Continues

Dec. 5, 2007 Updated 2:52 p.m.

By John M. Donnelly, CQ Staff

House Democrats remained at loggerheads with their Senate counterparts Wednesday over whether to include a hate-crimes provision in the final fiscal 2008 defense authorization bill, an impasse that has held up a formal conference on the bill.

Although the House named its conferees Wednesday, the last procedural step needed before reconciling its version of the bill (HR 1585) with that passed by the Senate, only the House negotiators showed up at 1 p.m., when the conference was supposed to begin.

A Senate aide said senators were "just not ready for a meeting."

"There weren't any senators here," said Vic Snyder, D-Ark., a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, emerging from the meeting room. "We're still at an impasse over the hate-crimes issue."

Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., told members at the meeting he was optimistic an agreement still could be reached before the session ends this month.

But so far, there is no resolution to the dispute over a provision in the Senate version of the bill extending race-based hate-crime laws to include crimes committed against people because of their gender, sexual orientation or disability.

Senate leaders have insisted on including the provision in the final version, but House leaders have concluded the language would doom the bill's chances in that chamber.

Now Senate negotiators must decide whether to insist on the provision. The key figure in that decision will be Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

A Democratic leadership aide said the provision is important to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

"Reid strongly supports the hate-crimes amendment and worked hard to include it in the Defense Department bill, so he hopes it can be included in the conference report and passed by the House," the aide said.

Earlier, the House voted, 328-83, for a motion by Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., to instruct its conferees to adopt a Senate amendment endorsing strategies to avoid a "failed state" in Iraq and opposing any legislation undermining that goal. The motion also would urge the conferees to continue funding for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The motion was intended to undercut Democratic efforts to withhold or tie strings to Iraq war appropriations. Democrats, especially in the House, are balking at providing any more of the $196.4 billion the president has sought in emergency supplemental funds to continue the wars in fiscal 2008 unless there are troop-withdrawal timelines and other conditions on the appropriations.

"The Republican motion to instruct puts the House on record acknowledging the consequences of a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq and not fully funding our troops and their missions," said Hunter.

But Democrats said the Republican recommendations would be part of the conference report anyway. They generally supported the motion even though they contended it was not necessary.

"By the way, it is probably what is going to be in the bill," said Ellen O. Tauscher, D-Calif., a veteran member of the House Armed Services Committee.

First posted Dec. 5, 2007 12:20 p.m.